Just imagine the Brit’s reaction had two pieces of their country first broken off to form separate Muslim nations, followed by ethnic cleansing of the British Christians, while the Muslims who happily remained in the rest of “secular” Britain, made 7\7 a twice a year occurence.

See things in context.

MERCY, child. Don’t EVER mention “Razib” and “statistics” in the same breath, lest you commence an avalanche of facts and figures which will engulf us all. No one wins against the Razib. No one. He is scarily smart.

Did anyone watch The War Within that’s been airing on CNN for the past few days? Here’s Part 1 and Part 2. I guess part of the reason for extremism in the UK is also the fact that it is not a place of which immigration is a part of history and culture. As a result, you tend to find minorities mingling among themselves. Though it is the same to some extent in the US too, there is a fair amount of intermingling among people from different backgrounds since there’s a fair amount of diversity here.

On a side note, check out this song by the group Fun-Da-Mental. Particularly the guy, Aki Nawaz seems be quite out there politically. This song was banned in the UK. It’s called Cookbook D.I.Y.

1. Regarding Razib’s name, it was an honest mistake, for which I apologised later!
2. I didnot know that “Razib knows more about Christianity (and _, and _ ) than anyone on this site”….I dont know what statistics you used to make that statement.
3. People were making half baked and absolutely ridiculous statements regarding both religions and quoting unnecessarily from scriptures to look down upon others- all I did was give the exact figures (no of books) and try to undo the religion-bashing that some had gotten into….Not trying to push something I know down someone else’s throught…

No offense meant- none taken.

PS: maybe you should consider me in the category of “but we are a little extra partial to the youngest, because they’re sho cuuuute).

It may be also that my viewpoint is a result of a concerted effort on the part of the Indian government to create a pan-Indian identity through subliminal advertising on Doordarshan–I’m not kidding–that was somewhat successful. I think it’s also hard for people not to be emotional when they had family directly affected by events in the subcontinent’s history–Partition, communal riots, war etc. I remember being particularly upset by the movie Earth so I can imagine it must have reopened some relatively fresh wounds for a lot of people. I don’t blame people for being emotional about events that directly affected their lives/identity–it’s just when other people start to exploit that emotion for political gain that things get dangerous.

You are right. That viewpoint requires a certain maturity and detachment. But it’s hard to distance ourselves from something we still may feel is so close to our identity. When Deepa Mehta was in Delhi in the 1990s filming parts of the movie “Earth” (which was depicting events of Partition in 1947 Lahore), local Hindu/Muslim/Sikh bystanders would get inflammed just watching the actors do their thing, and Mehta almost had a communal riot break out on her hands, all because of a movie. I also see Indian history as a collective experience that shaped all of us and that we all share…but what makes me wary is the suspicion that the same mindset which caused so much destruction and havoc in the past, is still alive and well today in certain quarters, even if only among fringe groups.

religious practices are not the only thing that fuel greed. what about all our individual consumer purchases? can you honestly say that everything you have either bought or spent money on was worth it and not fuelled by a desire to gain some non-essential material pleasure just for the fun of it? be it clothes, car, computer, fancy cookware, overpriced “designer” coffees, movie tickets, tickets to sporting events to see highly overpaid athletes – how much of that could have instead been used for a better purpose? do you feel guilty when you have a good meal at a restaurant and realize that the amount your whole group spent on it could have sustained another family for probably weeks or months? why do we all strive for a better education or a higher-paying job? most people could live simply on a fraction of what they earn if they really put their mind to it. i would bet that most of us, no matter how high minded we are about making the world a better place, will end up spending far more (a disproportionate and probably unnecessary amount) on ourselves than we would ever do on others (not related to us).